Giants lose 4-2 to Mets

By Alex Pavlovic apavlovic@mercurynews.com

Posted:
08/02/2014 01:21:34 PM PDT

Updated:
08/02/2014 10:45:03 PM PDT

NEW YORK -- Jake Peavy didn't allow a base runner through six innings, and Michael Morse made the final out of the top of the seventh. Under normal circumstances, this would have been an easy decision for manager Bruce Bochy. Morse would have given way to Gregor Blanco.

But Saturday night's 4-2 loss to the New York Mets was anything but normal.

Peavy and Jacob deGrom started the game with six no-hit innings apiece before the bats woke up. It was then that Morse's iffy route in left field helped the Mets get their first hit and open the floodgates. The Mets scored four quick runs off Peavy, who had thrown just 72 pitches while retiring the first 19 batters he faced.

Morse has often given way to Blanco or Juan Perez in the late innings of close games, and Bochy considered making the move Saturday. But with the teams scoreless and both pitchers cruising, he stuck with Morse.

"We've got to get a run," Bochy said.

By the time the Giants finally did, the Mets had done enough on their end to secure a win. The four-run rally started when Daniel Murphy hit a liner to left with Peavy perfect through 6﻿1/3 innings. Morse got a late break toward the wall, and by then it was too late. The ball rolled to the wall for a double. A bloop single then dropped in front of Morse, and a hit-by-pitch, sacrifice fly and two more hits put four runs on the board.

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"You assume the ball would have been caught -- you don't know that," Bochy said when asked if he thought of replacing Morse. "We didn't have our best defender out there, but it's a tie game on the road. You hate to take out one of your big bats. They happened to hit a couple balls his way."

Morse said he wasn't fooled by the flight of Murphy's liner.

"You're playing shallow-in," he said. "He hit it pretty good. It just kept going away, towards the line."

The play was a tough one to swallow because it was the first hit allowed by Peavy, who had never before taken a no-hitter past 5﻿1/3 innings. After taking the loss, Peavy shouldered the blame.

"I've got to make better pitches, that's all there is to it," he said. "It's just frustrating. It's frustrating because I felt we had a chance to win that game. I know I could have done more."

Peavy was in for a tough task regardless of how the bottom of the seventh played out. The Mets got a similarly brilliant effort from deGrom, a rookie who allowed just a Brandon Belt walk through the first six innings. Pablo Sandoval broke up one no-hit bid in the seventh, and the Giants got two runs in the eighth on a single by Belt, double by Perez and pinch-hit single by Travis Ishikawa. But that would be it. The Giants managed just four hits off deGrom.

"He was keeping us off balance," said Belt, who came off the disabled list after missing two weeks with a concussion. "He was really good at hitting the outside corner. He was really good at keeping it at the knees. He was really good at hitting the outside corner at the knees. That's tough."

While deGrom's no-hit bid led to a sixth win, Peavy fell to 1-11. His 11-decision losing streak is the longest by a pitcher who previously won a Cy Young Award, but the Giants feel Peavy has deserved much better in two starts in orange and black.

"He threw great," Bochy said. "He gave us all he had there. He just had trouble getting that last out (in the seventh)."

That was little consolation to Peavy.

"There were a lot of positives when you look back, but you can't dwell on that now with the team losing the game," Peavy said. "At the end of the day, you try to put up zeros, and their guy did an outstanding job. I didn't do enough."

Angel Pagan is scheduled to head to Triple-A Fresno on Sunday and could be back in the Giants lineup at some point during this week's series in Milwaukee. Pagan has missed 40 games with lower back inflammation. Outfielder Jarrett Parker is also headed to Fresno after just one game in the big leagues. Parker was called up Friday but sent back to the minors when Belt was activated.

Catcher Hector Sanchez took batting practice and went through a full workout eight days after suffering a concussion. Sanchez said everything is back to normal, and he could soon return to the roster or begin a short rehab assignment.

Before the game, a fan injured his arm when he fell over a railing above the left-field wall and landed on the warning track.